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DeepSeek vs ChatGPT
DeepSeek’s app is free, with no paid plan at all, and its model’s weights are public. ChatGPT has a free app too, plus paid plans from $8 to $500 a month, and is used vastly more. Through the API, DeepSeek is no longer the cheapest: OpenAI’s GPT-6 Luna now costs less per token, except for cached input. DeepSeek also stores your data in China.
Checked October 18, 2026 against DeepSeek’s pricing page, its App Store listing and ChatGPT’s pricing page
| DeepSeek | ChatGPT | |
|---|---|---|
| App price | Free; no paid plans | Free, or Go $8, Plus $20 and Pro from $100 a month |
| Newest model | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (updated October 17, 2026) | GPT-6 Astra |
| Open weights | Yes, published on Hugging Face | No |
| Images | Reads images (V4.1 Flash); no image generation listed | Image generation and editing in the free app |
| Where your data is stored | In the People’s Republic of China, its privacy policy says | See OpenAI’s privacy policy |
| Share of chatbot visits to websites | 0.02% | 80.48% |
ChatGPT prices from OpenAI’s pricing page. Share of visits: Statcounter, September 2026.
The apps: free against paid plans
DeepSeek’s assistant app is free and has no in-app purchases; you can also chat on its website. ChatGPT’s app is free too, with image generation, voice and photo upload; its paid plans are Go at $8, Plus at $20 and Pro from $100 a month.
DeepSeek also publishes its models openly: the weights of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash are on Hugging Face, so anyone with the hardware can run it themselves. OpenAI’s GPT-6 models are available only through OpenAI and its partners.
DeepSeek and ChatGPT plans by price
- FreeChatGPTFree
- FreeDeepSeekFree
- GoChatGPT$8 a month
- PlusChatGPT$20 a month
- ProChatGPTfrom $100 a month
US prices a month before tax. DeepSeek’s app has no paid plan; ChatGPT Pro is the lowest of several tiers.
DeepSeek vs ChatGPT models through the API
DeepSeek charges by time of day: its listed prices apply at peak hours (01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC, Monday to Friday, except Chinese public holidays) and everything else costs half. Even off-peak, DeepSeek Flash costs more per token than OpenAI’s GPT-6 Luna for fresh input and output; only cached input, the text a model has already read, is cheaper at DeepSeek.
| Model | Input | Cached input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek Flash, peak | $0.30 | $0.006 | $1.20 |
| DeepSeek Flash, off-peak | $0.15 | $0.003 | $0.60 |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro, peak | $1.32 | $0.044 | $3.96 |
| GPT-6 Luna | $0.10 | $0.01 | $0.50 |
| GPT-6.1 Sol | $2.00 | $0.10 | $10.00 |
| GPT-6 Astra | $10.00 | $1.00 | $50.00 |
Prices side by side
US dollars per 1 million tokens, standard tier, from each company’s pricing page. The month: 30,000 requests of 2,000 tokens in (half read from cache) and 500 out. Set your own numbers in the calculator below.
What it costs in a month
Prices aren’t the whole story: OpenAI positions Luna for cost-sensitive, high-volume work and Astra for its hardest tasks, so compare results on your own tasks.
DeepSeek vs GPT for your use
Choose models
- Turn on JavaScript to see the costs. The price tables below work without it.
Privacy: where your chats go
DeepSeek’s privacy policy says it collects, processes and stores your personal data in the People’s Republic of China, and that it may be stored on servers outside the country where you live. If that matters for your work, the open weights offer a way round it: run the model on your own hardware or with a host you choose.
What people say
The DeepSeek V4.1 Flash launch drew more than 570 comments on Hacker News. Developers praised the detailed technical report and the very low price of cached input, and one called it a strong, cheap backup for when a paid subscription runs out. On the other side, users said the app sometimes answers English questions in Chinese, and one pointed out that DeepSeek’s own benchmark table puts it ahead of OpenAI’s older GPT-5.6 Sol on some tests and behind on others.
DeepSeek’s share of the website visits sent by AI chatbots was 0.02% in September 2026, against 80.48% for ChatGPT (Statcounter).
Questions
Is DeepSeek free to use?
Yes. DeepSeek’s app is free and has no paid plan. Developers pay per token through the API, from $0.15 per million input tokens off-peak.
Is DeepSeek better than ChatGPT?
It is cheaper to use and its weights are open, but ChatGPT makes images, has voice mode and is far more widely used. For developers, DeepSeek Flash’s cached input is the cheapest of any model here, while GPT-6 Luna is cheaper for fresh input and output.
Is DeepSeek safe to use?
DeepSeek stores your data in China, its privacy policy says. Don’t share anything you wouldn’t want held there; for sensitive work, run the open model yourself or use a host you trust.
Is DeepSeek cheaper than ChatGPT through the API?
Not always. In our monthly example, DeepSeek Flash costs $27.18 at peak rates and $13.59 off-peak, GPT-6 Luna $10.80 and GPT-6 Astra $1,080.
Sources
- DeepSeek: Models and pricing (prices, peak hours, context, vision)
- DeepSeek: Privacy policy
- DeepSeek on the App Store and ChatGPT pricing
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash on Hugging Face
- Our DeepSeek API pricing and OpenAI API pricing
- Statcounter Global Stats, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0